Monday, September 19, 2011

"The Greatest Living Psychologist"

Albert Bandura's research and experiments have garnered him over 5,000 citations on Google Scholar and is often noted by his colleagues as the "greatest living psychologist." Bandura's humble beginnings make his grand successes in the field of psychology even more profound as he was born in Canada to Polish immigrant parents who could afford him no formal elementary education. He was taught at home by his father, eventually mastering three languages: Polish, Russian and German. After high school Bandura attended the University of British Columbia where, by chance, he enrolled in a psychology class merely to satisfy a gap in his morning class schedule. Once bitten by his passion for the field, Bandura went on to further his psychology studies at the University of Iowa, eventually earning his PhD. With that he went to teach at Stanford University where he would expand on his theories by conducting groundbreaking experiments centered around social learning and human behavior.

Albert Bandura's most notable contributions to the field of psychology are his theories on social cognitive behavior. It was through his research and experiments that Bandura was able to establish new ground on how human beings are influenced by the behavior(s) of others - mostly adults - as well as by pop culture advertising and social media outlets. His findings led him to conclude with his highly-lauded Social Cognitive Theory: much of a person's knowledge is attained through observing others. Essentially what Bandura concluded from all his research on social learning is that one's environment causes one's behavior.


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